Thomas Bramall will referee Dale for the second time in two months when we entertain Blackpool in League One on Boxing Day.

The Sheffield official appeared at the Crown Oil Arena at the start of November for the Checkatrade Trophy game versus Leicester City U21, which the visitors won on penalties after a 2-2 draw.

Mr Bramall is in his debut season on the National List and before Saturday, when he was in the middle at Lincoln v Newport, Thomas had refereed 24 games this term, showing 52 yellow cards and two red cards.

Remarkably, this will be the third time he has taken charge of a Blackpool fixture in that time, having refereed their 3-0 home defeat of Burton on 24th November and their 1-0 home win over Scunthorpe a month earlier.

Thomas started out at this level with Cheltenham v Crawley on the opening day of the campaign and the majority of his games have been in the north of the country, with the exception of Colchester v bury and Plymouth v Burton.

Before his promotion for this season, Bramall had spent two years refereeing in the National League and prior to that, he had been an assistant referee in league football.

That role brought him to Spotland in February 2016 for Dale’s midweek home game versus Crewe, which ended in a 2-2 draw after Dale had led 2-0 inside six minutes!

Photo: Action Images

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